The Cracks in the Kingdom Read online

  Three days passed.

  They had each become adept at catching firelight spells. Each had filled their icebox with spells. Keira had a punctuality spell, a spell to ease a sore throat, and one to help you dance tango.

  Samuel had gathered spells to find lost magnets and to entertain fractious children, along with an impressively large spell that would heat a small wooden cabin.

  Sergio had had the most luck with the Household Spells: His would stop sliced apples from turning brown, get fingerprints off glass, and unclog a pepper grinder.

  Princess Ko was considering trading in her spells: She had one to increase her typing speed (she was already superfast), to shine shoes (people did that for her), and to curl hair (she liked hers straight). She’d been hopeful at first that this last one might be one of the rare metaphoric spells — so she could use it in the sense of frightening people rather than literally curling hair — but no, it just curled hair.

  Elliot, meanwhile, had caught a spell to conjure the scent of vanilla, a clear-away spell (which he thought he’d give to Corrie-Lynn, since her least favorite part of woodwork was clearing up), and a spell to take up the hem of a short tartan skirt. (“While a hot girl is wearing it?” Elliot asked, and Keira said, “Ha ha, Farms boy.”)

  They had learned to tell the difference between strong spells with casings as hard as oyster shells, and fragile spells which died quickly once caught. They knew that the mini-spells — the ones you could scrape from the underside of rocks or leaves — were more trouble than they were worth. Sure, those spells might scratch an itch, untangle a simple knot, give you a boiled sweet, but they kept getting caught under your fingernails. May as well scratch the itch yourself.

  They’d learned to shake spells out of their shoes at night, and to brush them from their sleeping bags. They’d all given up on trying for the darting schools of spells, but none could quite give up on the impossibly pretty star-shaped spells that clustered around the twigs and blooms of the willows, birch, and crab apples.

  On the third day, around seven P.M., the weather changed.

  It had been summer since they arrived, but now Elliot felt chill and damp touching his sunburned skin. He grabbed his jacket and his icebox. It was his turn to fish for the Locator Spell.

  Activity never really stopped at the Lake — some kids swore that night fishing got the best results, although this was controversial — but the mood did soften at twilight. Elliot passed circles of conversations around campfires, accents transforming as he walked, from the fluting lyricism of Magical North to the chains-dragging-through-gravel of those from Nature Strip. Mostly people were arguing over bait (water baits, spinner baits, minnows, dragon scales), location (lily pads, logs, rocks, weed beds), technique (“Choose a spot and stay,” someone declared; “If you don’t get any bites after three or four casts, move on!” his friend replied), and equipment (“I like a float made of porcupine quills,” said a girl of maybe eight).

  At the Precise Spot, he found Samuel swaying slightly in a doze. The rod was propped in his lap. An empty basket, a tin cup, and an icebox sat by his side.

  “Call yourself a good evening from me!” Samuel exclaimed, waking abruptly when Elliot touched his shoulder. “See here what Princess Ko provided for me? This cup of ice chips, to wet my thirst in the afternoon sun. Although,” he shivered, and scanned the graying sky, “winter comes apace. Your night will be chill.”

  Elliot sat beside Samuel, took ahold of the rod, and they effected the smooth transition one from the other.

  Samuel remained where he was, gazing about him.

  “It is our last night,” he said, eventually, “and I fear …”

  “I fear it too,” Elliot agreed. “And I fear the guilt’s doing me in. Should never have brought us all here. Been fun, though,” he added.

  “It has indeed.” Samuel grew solemn with the weight of this revelation. “The greatest fun I have had perhaps in years. The magic here is so pure, so delightful!”

  Elliot looked at him sideways.

  “Magic in Olde Quainte’s a whole other story?”

  Samuel stirred himself, and nodded once.

  “As you no doubt know, the magic in my province is naught but curses and wishes,” he said, “and the wishes so tightly bound they will slice open your flesh.” He stood, but remained where he was, just behind Elliot, swinging his icebox slightly. He touched Elliot’s own icebox with his foot.

  “We have each caught our quota of three spells,” he said. “Where will we put the Locator Spell if we catch it?”

  Seemed no point answering that. The line twitched, and Elliot jerked the rod, and reeled it in. Nothing. Samuel let out his breath, and watched as Elliot rebaited and cast out again.

  “There are those who believe they have learned to control it,” Samuel said, and Elliot tried to figure out what he meant. “But it turns on them. Always it turns on them, and they find themselves enchained — malformed — their limbs torn asunder.”

  Ah, he was back on the magic of Olde Quainte. Elliot glanced up at the boy. A dark shape against the dimming sky.

  “The blackflies are biting,” Samuel added, more cheerfully. “They have drawn blood!” He reached around to the back of his neck, and held out his fingertip to show Elliot. Couldn’t see much in this light, but Elliot made a sympathetic noise anyway.

  “Have to get that cleared up before we leave tomorrow,” Elliot said. “You don’t want to be bleeding when we’re heading through vampire territory.”

  “At least this wintry air will quiet the insects,” Samuel said. “At what hour does your shift conclude, my friend?”

  “Midnight.”

  “Who replaces you?”

  “The Princess, I think.”

  “Ah, Princess Ko,” Samuel sighed, sitting down again. “She has done her best, has she not? As to a teacup in a quagmire. Her enthusiasm has not waned in the face of utter, abject failure. Which some may call a fine thing, others idiocy. I have seen her study the symbol until it must be imprinted on her eyeballs.” He touched his own forehead, where the marks were smudged. “I have seen her sketch it in the dust with sticks; draw it on the surface of the water with her fingtertip.”

  Elliot was silent. In the three days they’d been here there’d hardly been a nibble. He looked over the darkness of the water.

  “That Keira on the other hand,” Samuel added. “She has scarcely noted the symbol. She is so caught up in her own fierceness! As to a tigress in the presence of a threat to her cubs!”

  “Ah, Keira’s all right,” Elliot shrugged. “You can’t blame her for finding this whole thing a waste of time. I kind of do myself.” He reflected a moment. “Samuel,” he said, “that might be the first time one of your similes has actually worked.”

  Samuel ignored this. “She does mock and taunt your province, Elliot,” he frowned. “Does it not irk you?”

  Elliot shrugged again. “Don’t suppose the Farms needs Keira’s approval.”

  “Call yourself this. Have you any clue as to why Keira so despises the Princess? The strangest tension zings back and forth between them, does it not?”

  “It does. And no clue at all.”

  “They are both strong-willed, beautiful girls whose names begin with K,” Samuel noted wryly. “Perhaps that is all there is to it.”

  Elliot laughed, surprised. “And that might be the first time I’ve heard you make a joke,” he said.

  Samuel was silent, gazing over the water. Maybe it hadn’t been a joke.

  But abruptly he chuckled and stood. He rested a hand on Elliot’s shoulder as he did so.

  “When we leave empty-handed on the morrow,” he said, “I only hope the Princess can bear it.”

  Elliot nodded. That thought had occurred to him too.

  “Stay warm,” Samuel said, and then: “I have caught many extra spells today — I will trade them for blankets for you anon, and bring these back. What say you?”

  “That’d be much appreciated,�
� Elliot said.

  He watched as Samuel turned and paused briefly. Then the boy straightened his shoulders, and marched away among the campfires. He seemed, Elliot thought, both very young and very old.

  6.

  Someone woke Elliot with a sharp double hit on his leg, and he’d already felt for his jacket and boots, dragged them on, and pushed his way out of the tent into the night, before he’d even thought to wonder what was happening.

  Keira and Samuel were out there already, underneath the ice-cold moonlight. They were huddled into themselves, coats over pajamas. Turned out it was Sergio who’d woken them. His face had a sidelong panic to it, and he was jumping foot to foot. “She thinks she’s got it,” he was saying, hoarse and urgent, “Come! She thinks she’s got it!”

  They followed him at an awkward jog through the deep dark and quiet, stumbling over roots and tent pegs. Elliot was keeping pace but found himself slowing as his thoughts began to wake: If she’s caught it, great! But let’s talk in the morning.

  They reached Princess Ko. She was crouched on the bank, a lantern lighting up the strands of hair that had fallen from her braid. They couldn’t figure out what she was doing. There was a frantic sort of fierceness to the hunch of her shoulders, and her hands were clutching at something, but it was too dark to make out what.

  “It’s down there,” she said as they reached her. She didn’t look up at them but tilted her chin toward the black water surface. “It’s tangled in the pondweed.”

  They gathered around her, trying to peer into the water themselves, but she snapped, “Get ahold of this, everyone, and help me pull it out!”

  They shifted closer to her and now they saw the length of pondweed roping from the water and into Ko’s hands. It was thick as a sapling trunk.

  “Get ahold of it,” she repeated, and her words became a groan as she gave a great yank, and more of the pondweed slithered from the lake. She stumbled back.

  They lined up behind her, each reaching for the weed. It was matted with old leaves and algae, ice-cold, moist with slime. Samuel touched it, squealed, and leapt back. He murmured an apology which included the words shame and mortification, then reached for it again.

  “Just hang on,” the Princess said, breathless. “Now and then it loosens up a bit, and then we pull — when I say go we all — okay, go.”

  They tugged hard, and the weed resisted a moment, then slid slowly from the water, up over the bank with a slick, thick, glugging sound.

  “Too fast!”

  They slowed.

  “Like this,” she said, and they leaned around one another’s shoulders to watch how the Princess placed hand over hand, steady and slow, as if climbing up a rope.

  They copied her. Lined up behind the Princess, they fell into a rhythm. Sergio, at the end of their line, let the pondweed coil onto the ground beside him.

  After a moment, it snagged.

  “Now stop,” said the Princess.

  Keira lifted her hands away

  “But don’t let go! Wait. Wait. Now start again.”

  So they did.

  They pulled and pulled and the coil of pondweed grew steadily higher behind them. Every few moments it stopped abruptly and they paused and then began again. They worked silently. It began raining, ice-cold darts hitting their foreheads, cheeks, and necks.

  “How long is this thing?” Keira asked once. Nobody replied.

  The Lake itself was quiet. The trading tables were covered, fishing-gear kiosk closed. Across the way a small group of people stood about at the boat rental, talking in low murmurs. Somebody kicked the side of a kayak and it rocked slightly, then settled again. There were four or five rowboats out on the water. You could see kids rugged up out there, some leaning down with nets, or holding fishing lines, and fragments of quiet conversations drifted over.

  The pondweed continued to slide out of the Lake. Now and then they’d see a spell caught up in the weed, but this would spill back into the water, or wriggle its way into the fiber of the weed itself.

  An hour passed. There was a palpable shift in the weather, as if somebody had cranked it up a notch. The rain hardened abruptly, turning to splinters of ice. Their hands were chafing, aching on the cold of the weed. The mud was growing slick, so it was harder to grip. Elliot looked down at his skidding boots and realized that Samuel, behind him, had bare feet.

  “What are we doing?” Elliot said suddenly.

  Princess Ko ignored him. “Wait,” she said. “Stop again. Stop. Okay, start.” The coils of pondweed had formed a shoulder high pile and was beginning to slip sideways. Sergio tried to straighten it with one hand.

  They were half asleep with night and cold; it was as if they had forgotten how to think.

  “What are we doing?” Elliot repeated. “Listen to me. What are we doing?”

  “It’s down there,” Princess Ko said. “The Locator Spell. I saw it.”

  “When?”

  “Back. I saw it — wait, stop — now start again.” She wrenched hard, then got into hand-over-hand rhythm again. “I don’t know. A few hours ago.”

  “A few hours ago,” Elliot repeated. “You got a glimpse of the Locator Spell, somewhere down in the water, a few hours ago?”

  Behind him, he sensed the others hesitating.

  “It’s still there.” Princess Ko leaned forward. “I know it. I fell asleep for a moment I guess, and when I woke up the rod had got tangled in the weed and fallen into the water. I was trying to get it back when I saw the spell. It was way down. Way down in the water and kind of clinging to this weed — we just need to get the weed out and …”

  Keira let go. She shook her hands hard in the air, and stepped aside.

  “Samuel has no shoes,” she said. “He’ll get frostbite or whatever. I’m going to bed.”

  Elliot was still holding on, but he’d stopped pulling. “Princess,” he said. “You were maybe just dreaming when you saw it. And if not, well, it’ll be long gone now.”

  He released the pondweed, straightened up, and stood by Keira.

  Now it was just the Princess, Samuel, and Sergio crouched in the mud, holding the pondweed, staring straight ahead.

  “If you don’t —” began the Princess, in little, bitten words. “Elliot and Keira, I swear, if you don’t —”

  Then the weed in her hand jerked hard, buckled, and flew back toward the water. The Princess screamed. Sergio swore. Samuel’s hands leapt into the air. The pondweed was zipping and careening away from them and into the Lake, the pile of coils bucking and unraveling, while the Princess grabbed and grabbed at it.

  Abruptly, the rushing stopped. The Princess was panting, holding the end of the pondweed tight: The rest had vanished back into the water.

  “Okay, that’s it,” Keira said. “Go to bed.”

  But the Princess was leaning over the Lake.

  “The pondweed’s caught,” she said. “It’s snared in something down there. I just need —”

  And then in a single rush of motion, she had thrust the end of the pondweed into Sergio’s hands, wrenched off her boots, and jumped.

  There was a small splash. A mighty intake of breath from all of them.

  Faces in boats turned their way.

  The water was perfectly still.

  They scrabbled to the edge, got on their knees, leaned down. Elliot touched the water and it was the kind of cold that burns.

  There was a long, dark stillness.

  She was not coming up.

  She was not coming up.

  She was not —

  Elliot looked sideways at their faces in the lantern light, and they all had that odd calm frown. The strangeness of a pause inside a panic. The almost-smile of it, the absurdity.

  There was a girl under the water, and she wasn’t coming up.

  It was as if that fact itself was underwater; easier to leave it there, let things stay quiet, smooth, this gentle nighttime lapping, the moonlight, the shadowed tents.

  The last remaining member
of the Cello royal family just drowned.

  That sentence shouted loud inside Elliot’s head, and he sensed the others were hearing it too, all of them suddenly scrambling at that thought.

  Sergio handed the weed to Samuel, and was pulling off his boots, positioning himself to dive.

  “Wait,” said Keira, and the water broke open.

  The Princess gasped and crashed to the edge, clambering up the side. Her face was streaked with mud, her hair, like strands of pondweed itself, crisscrossed her face. Water rushed from her clothes.

  “It’s loose now.” She was blinking against rivulets of water. She grabbed the end of pondweed from Samuel’s hands, resumed her position, and began to haul it in.

  “Get behind me!” she snapped.

  The others remained standing, watching her, glancing at one another.

  “Ko,” Sergio said gently. “You cannot now stay out in those wet clothes. You will die from it. Now is the —”

  “You’re kidding me.” Keira was leaning over the lake. She swiveled, grabbed Samuel by his ears, studied the symbol that was smudged on his forehead. Her eyes widened. She turned back to the Lake, crouched, and peered into the darkness. “It’s there! The Princess is right!” Her voice kept heading into little crests, a pitch they’d never heard from Keira before. “It’s down there. Way down. It is caught up in this freakin’ pondweed.”

  Then she was behind the Princess, her hands on the weed again.

  The boys paused, watching these two girls, one drenched and shivering, the other vibrant with excitement, both of them hauling, hand over hand.

  “Ah, for crying out loud,” murmured Elliot, and he joined them. Samuel did too, but Sergio disappeared, returning a few moments later with towels which he wrapped around Ko’s shoulders. Then he joined in too.

  It was different now. Rather than movement, then pauses, there was a constant sliding back and forth. They’d drag out piles of the pondweed, then it would fight back, slither-rushing into the water again. Like a tug-of-war.